The present invention relates to a means for collecting and removing fluids from the areas adjacent a surgical site during a surgical procedure. More particularly, the present invention relates to a suction pad and a surgical drape incorporating such a suction pad for collecting and evacuating fluids during a surgical procedure.
While traditional surgical procedures have always been bloody, the advent of less invasive surgical procedures, such as knee arthroscopies, has actually increased the total amount of fluids present during a given surgical procedure due to the large quantities of irrigation fluids used. Attempts to control body and other fluids have ranged from simple to increasingly complicated methods. This is due in part to increased concerns over the risks to health care workers in the operating room. This includes the surgical team as well as those individuals responsible for preparing and cleaning the operating room after the completion of a procedure.
Fluid control in the most crude form is characterized by simply letting all fluids fall off the operating field onto the operating room floor followed by a complete clean-up by the housekeeping staff. Several risks are involved in practicing fluid management in this manner. First, all fluids originating in the operative field must fall past the operative staff thereby bringing some degree of risk of contamination to the operating staff themselves due to the contaminants contained within the fluid. This is compounded by the secondary risks of having liquids on the floor with the associated risks of slipping and falling. Thirdly, there are increased risks to the housekeeping staff due to their contact with the fluids during the clean-up procedure.
Absorbent pads are sometimes placed on the operating room floor to capture falling liquids as one solution to this problem. However, these pads have a limited capacity and seldom can be situated so as to capture all the fluid. In any event, most operating room personnel object to floor capture methods as the fluids have already passed by the staff. Furthermore, the contaminated floor pads must still be handled by housekeeping staff during the clean-up procedure.
Another solution to this problem has been the advent of a product commonly referred to as a lily pad which sits on the floor and consists of a hard, plastic platform on which the surgeon and staff can stand during the operative procedure. The lily pad has holes in its upper surface through which fluids are drawn and removed by room suction devices. The problem with this design, however, is the fact the actual removal of the fluid does not take place until the fluid has passed by the operating room staff during the surgical procedure. In addition, lily pads are of a finite size and therefore, if the fluids do not fall directly on the pad, additional clean-up will still be required by the housekeeping staff. Lastly, because of the hard surface of such lily pads, splashing is often a problem.
Rudimentary operative field fluid control is achieved through the use of absorbent materials near the operative site, such as gauze sponges and/or huck towels in and around the operative site. Another solution is the building of absorbent materials into or on the surgical drapes for limited fluid control. Such methods, however, are effective only in those situations where fluid flow is extremely low and/or sporadic. In cases where heavy irrigation is anticipated, the towels will have to be continuously replaced to afford any kind of control for heavy fluid volume.
Another common means of fluid control and removal which is site specific is the use of suction lines. However, such suction devices are very localized in the utilization, are hand held and must be held in place, most often directly adjacent the fluid source to be effective.
Perhaps the greatest advancement in large scale control of fluids is the utilization of fluid collection pouches, either alone, or in conjunction with surgical drape designs. Such fluid collection pouches will often surround at least a portion of the operative site to provide continuous fluid collection. Such fluid collection pouches can optionally be used in conjunction with drain tubes to allow the fluids collected within the pouch to be siphoned off to another reservoir such as a collection pail underneath the operating table. A drawback with such fluid collection pouches, however, is the fact that they depend upon gravity to work. As a result, the pouches oftentimes hang over the side of the patient and operating room table such that they are often bumped into or leaned up against by the operating room staff which in turn can cause spillage of the fluid back out of the bag and/or closing of the opening in the bag so that fluids cannot properly enter.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a fluid containment and removal device which will improve upon the aforementioned designs. It is another object of the present invention to provide a fluid collection and removal device which has virtually unlimited capacity thereby alleviating many of the problems with past designs due to capacity restrictions. It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a fluid collection and removal system which will yield an operating field directly adjacent the operating site which is relatively clean and free of fluid. These and other objects of the present invention will become more apparent upon a further review of the following specification, drawings and claims.